Scotland Urgent Care Survey
How have I been selected for the Scotland Urgent Care Survey?
NHS 24 compiled a sample of 3,500 people living in Scotland who called 111 to access urgent care over a two-week period.
The survey is voluntary. By completing the survey, you are agreeing that the information you provide and the information from NHS 24, can be used by Picker to evaluate the redesign of the urgent care pathway.
Who is carrying out the survey?
The Scotland Urgent Care survey is being carried out independently by Picker (www.picker.org), a health and social care research charity, on behalf of the Scottish Government.
Your contact details have been passed to Picker by NHS 24, only so that they can send you this questionnaire and process your response. Picker will process your answers in confidence and keep them separate from your contact details – your answers to the survey are not linked to your name or address.
What information has NHS 24 shared with Picker?
NHS 24 has provided Picker with your name, address, sex, year of birth, the relationship of the caller to you (if the call was made on behalf of you), your local Health Board, the date and time of your 111 call, the length of time you waited before your call was answered and what action was taken at the end of the call (such as whether your call was transferred to Primary Care out of hours service). NHS 24 shared this information securely with Picker by using an encrypted transfer site. NHS 24 have not provided Picker with information on the reason for your call, nor details of the conversation(s) you had with staff at NHS 24.
This information has been shared by NHS 24 so that Picker can send you a questionnaire to ask about your experiences of the urgent care pathway. Information such as your sex, year of birth and the time/date of call have been shared to understand if there are any differences in people’s experiences of accessing urgent care by different groups of people (such as age groups) or because of the day/time the call was made.
Picker takes its information security responsibilities very seriously and applies various precautions to ensure your information is protected at all times from loss, theft or misuse. Security precautions include appropriate physical security of offices and controlled and limited access to computer systems. Stringent measures have been taken to ensure personal information is securely stored and only seen by the personnel directly involved in the survey.
Picker has regular internal and external audits of its information security controls and working practices, and is accredited to the International Standard for Information Security, ISO 27001.
Who has access to my information?
Greens Ltd is working on behalf of Picker to print and mail the questionnaires used in the Scotland Urgent Care Survey. Picker securely shared only your name and address information with Greens for the purpose of sending out the questionnaires. This information will be securely deleted from Greens systems once the survey has finished. Completed questionnaires will be returned to Greens Ltd in the freepost envelopes, where your answers will be captured against your personal reference number (located at the top right of the cover letter). The paper copies of the questionnaire will be securely destroyed within six months after the survey.
If you choose to complete the survey online, only Picker will have access to the answers you provide.
The Scottish Government do not have access to any of your personal information.
Who is managing the survey helpdesk?
PECS Data Services Ltd is working on behalf of Picker to manage the survey helpdesk. Picker has not shared your personal information (name or address) with PECS. If you call the freephone helpline you will need to give them your personal reference number (located at the top right of the cover letter). The helpline will only have access to any personal information that you provide and will not be able to link your personal reference number to your name or address. The personal reference number will be shared with Picker so that they can action any requests (such as not wishing to take part and receiving any further letters about the survey).
Any calls made to the helpline will be recorded. These recordings and the call logs will be stored on PECS secure system and deleted 3 months after the end of the survey fieldwork.
What will happen to the information I share?
Picker will process your answers in confidence and keep them separate from your contact details. Your postcode will be used to undertake geographical analysis of overall results.
Your answers will be put together with the answers of other people (aggregated) to understand how the changes to Scotland’s urgent care pathway have affected people’s experiences of accessing care and to show where improvements are needed.
No responses will be published individually and to further protect confidentiality, the data will not be reported for questions where a small number of responses are received.
